The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

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An earlier wave of the revolution. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The New York Times this week spotlighted a Taiwan microchip company unknown heretofore to many Americans, MediaTek, for its role in the rapid emergency of Chinese and other Asian makes of low-cost smartphones. This sector has rapidly taken off as an emerging middle class purchases that "must have" device. MediaTek founder Tsai Ming-kai, in his early 60s, is one of the pioneers of the island economy's remarkable tech-hardware industry.

Forbes Asia magazine, in a story by Taipei contributor Joyce Huang in fall 2009, detailed how $3 billion-in-revenues MediaTek had transformed itself from entertainment and data-storage chips into those geared for cheap mobile phones and now smartphones. (Maybe that's coming full circle, at least in terms of application.) Initially, in China, many of these were so-called shanzai phones--pirate brands that gradually established their own legitimacy. They had to be focused on customer use, as opposed to image-consciousness, and MediaTek was good at adaptability. That is a trait we see again and again in Taiwanese firms--that and a prodigious work ethic.

The company is a three-time member of Forbes Asia's Fabulous 50 bigger-companies list. It's missed the last couple of years, largely because the margins and cycles in the chip business can be so brutal. But it sounds like we're going to be seeing more of Tsai Ming-kai & Co.